OEE Report for Head Office: What the COO Needs on One Page

Key takeaways

• One page, the same layout every month: OEE by plant and line, losses in money, decisions needed.
• Compare plants only on the same definitions. ISO 22400 gives the names; it is a set of definitions, not a certificate.
• Price losses with the right hour: Siemens puts a lost hour in a large FMCG plant at USD 36,000, not the automotive figure.
• Show the trend and the top losses, not 40 KPIs.
• In one industry survey, 43% of 1,560 manufacturing decision makers said they do not effectively use the data they collect. A short report gets read.

In the sample report below, the biggest loss, USD 67,000, sits at one plant. The fix already exists at another, and the COO sees it in two minutes.

Fabrico is OEE and light MES software with AI cameras that prices every loss in money and gives one view across plants. This guide is for CI leads and operations managers who report OEE to a COO or a group operations team.

What does a COO want from an OEE report?

A COO does not run the lines. They decide where money, people and attention go. So the report has to answer three questions:

1. Which plants and lines are losing the most, in money?
2. Is the improvement work moving the numbers?
3. What do the plants need from head office to fix the rest?

Everything on the page should serve one of those questions. A chart that answers none of them is decoration.

What goes on the one page?

• A table of OEE by plant and by main line, this month and the last three months, with each line's own target.
• The split into Availability, Performance and Quality, so the reader sees what kind of loss it is.
• The five largest losses across all plants, in money, with one line on cause and action.
• Decisions needed: a spare part budget, a staffing gap, a design change. Each with an owner at head office.
• One note on data quality: which lines are still on manual logs, and when they move to machine data.

For the board version of this, with profit and capacity in front, see our guide to presenting OEE to the board.

Why must every plant use the same OEE definitions?

Two plants can both report 65% and mean different things, because they count changeovers or set the ideal rate differently. Our guide to comparing OEE calculations covers how to fix that.

ISO 22400-2 gives shared names: Availability = actual production time / planned busy time, and Quality ratio = good quantity / produced quantity.

The standard helps, but it is a set of definitions, not a certificate. What matters is that every plant applies the same rules. Our explainer on OEE and ISO 22400 has the formulas, and fair multi-site OEE covers how to agree them across plants.

How do you put OEE losses in money for head office?

Minutes do not travel well up an organisation. Money does. But use the right price.

• For context, Siemens' True Cost of Downtime 2024 puts one lost hour in a large FMCG plant at USD 36,000. The automotive figure in the same report is far higher. Never quote it for an FMCG plant.
• For your own report, price a lost hour on the bottleneck at the contribution margin it would have earned. Do not use a machine-hour rate with depreciation in it.
• A lost hour on a machine the buffer protects may cost nothing. Do not add it to the money total.

Our guide on turning OEE losses into cost visibility goes deeper on the finance side.

Worked example: what does a one page OEE report look like?

Sample line (illustrative numbers, not a customer): a group with three FMCG plants, October report. Each loss is priced as hours lost on the bottleneck x a sample USD 5,000 margin per bottleneck hour.

Decisions needed this month:

• Plant South: approve a changeover study on line 2 and two days of an engineer's time. Owner: group CI lead.
• Plant North: no decision needed; the labeller fix is under way and the trend is up.
• Plant East: share its changeover method with Plant South, since East changes over in half the time.

The COO reads this in two minutes. The biggest money is at Plant South, the method to fix it already exists at Plant East, and only one decision is needed.

What should a head office report leave out?

• People's names next to the numbers. Measure the process, never the person.
• A single group OEE average. Averaging OEE across plants with different products hides the plant in trouble. See how to roll up OEE across sites.
• Forty KPIs. If the page needs a legend, it is too long.
• Numbers without a source. Say which lines are on machine data and which are still on manual logs.

How often should head office see OEE?

Send the one page report monthly. Send exceptions weekly: a line that fell sharply, a loss that doubled, an escalation stuck for two weeks. Daily data belongs to the plants. If head office starts asking for daily numbers, the plants spend their mornings explaining instead of fixing.

Where does Fabrico fit?

Fabrico is a computer vision enabled Manufacturing Performance Platform. It gives one view across plants with OEE live by line and shift, every loss priced in money and losses ranked by money.

Stops are logged automatically from the machine signal, so the monthly page comes from the same data the lines use every day. Start with a pilot on one line; our light MES guide explains the scope.

There is no free plan and there are no tiers: each plant gets a quote.

Frequently asked questions

What should an OEE report for management include?

Start with OEE by plant and main line, with the trend and the split into Availability, Performance and Quality. Add the largest losses in money, each with a cause and an action. End with the decisions needed and a note on which lines still use manual data. Keep it to one page.

Who should own the OEE definitions in a group?

One person at group level, usually the head of CI or operations excellence. Plants can propose changes, but a change to planned time or the ideal rate goes through that owner, with a date. Otherwise each plant drifts to its own rules and the monthly report stops comparing like with like.

Should head office set OEE targets for each plant?

Head office can set the direction, but each line's target should start from its own baseline. An 85% target for every line ignores product mix, line age and data quality. That figure comes from Nakajima's 1984 book on TPM; most plants score closer to 60%. It also invites people to bend definitions.

What price should be used for a lost hour?

Use the contribution margin the bottleneck would have earned in that hour, not a machine-hour rate with depreciation. A lost hour on a machine protected by a buffer may cost nothing. For FMCG context, Siemens puts a lost hour in a large plant at USD 36,000.

How long does a Fabrico rollout take?

Devices are connected in about one month and a full rollout takes 3 to 4 months. Start with a pilot on one line and agree the definitions there. Then add lines and plants once the people using the data trust it.

Get your plants on one page

Bring last month's OEE numbers from two plants. We will show how they compare on shared definitions, with the losses in money.

Request a demo or contact us.